Sherlock Holmes
Directed by Guy Ritchie. Written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, based on characters by Arthur Conan Doyle. With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, and Eddie Marsan. (PG-13)
Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes is something of a welcome surprise. After a childhood spent devouring the Conan Doyle stories and the various PBS productions devoted to the famous consulting detective, I was prepared for a letdown. Instead—despite a few sags and bumps along the way—this Holmes proves to be a bracing and enjoyable new entry in a series ripe for rediscovery.
It gets off to a rollicking start as Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) careers over the cobbles of a grimy London with the police hot on his heels, though not for the reasons we at first suspect. When they finally catch up to this very physical Sherlock, he and his companion Dr. Watson (Jude Law) have just narrowly averted an unspeakable crime involving a mixture of cloaks, incantations and nubile young women. Leaving the police to take the credit, the pair retire to their shared Baker Street lodgings to engage themselves in their true calling: spirited banter.
It's obvious that no Holmes film will work without a convincing Holmes, and Downey delivers a version that is at once true to the source material and outrageously new. While we're used to Holmes as an esthete—a gaunt, even fey skeleton supporting a massive brain—Downey's reminds us that Conan Doyle's detective was an accomplished boxer as well. Scenes of bare-knuckle (and bare-chested) combat are a bit over the top—more Fight Club than Diogenes Club—but an interesting experiment in melding a cerebral Holmes with director Ritchie's lad-culture worldview: even Holmes' uppercuts are the result of his logical analysis, one explained as each blow rains down in slow-motion.
More often overlooked is the character of Watson, with the good doctor relegated to sidekick status, or worse, comic relief (see the bumbling Nigel Bruce opposite Basil Rathbone). As played by Law, however, he retains the lean, military bearing of the recently returned Army man that Watson was. In some ways he and Downey resemble a mixed-up Kirk and Spock, and they share the same passionate sense of friendship even when—especially when—they find themselves at odds. Indeed, though Watson's engagement forms one of the film's main subplots, his love affair with Holmes is far deeper.
So with two formidable actors, it's a little bit unfortunate that the story of Sherlock Holmes is its weakest link. It concerns an occultist with plans to take control of a Freemason-like society, and from there all of England and beyond (including certain former colonies on this side of the Atlantic). As played by Mark Strong, Lord Blackwood is the most generic of villains, strutting about in Nazi leather and pomade a half-century before his time. Much is made of a supposed resurrection, but we know from the start that it can't be true—Conan Doyle may have traded in spiritualism, but Holmes never did. Equally mishandled is the character of Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), a criminal mastermind who in the original stories actually outwits Holmes; here she is also his conflicted love interest, but McAdams mostly seems eager to get back to her job at Urban Outfitters before her break is over.
But supporting characters can be rewritten or replaced, and this new iteration of the Holmes story has the right supports in place. Most intriguing for fans is the appearance of the detective's nemesis, Professor Moriarty. The criminal mastermind who was the dark reflection of Holmes is only a small (though important) part of the story here, but his scenes still generate an electric thrill. Yet, crucially, his face is never revealed: that, of course, is something for the sequel.
Me and Orson Welles
Directed by Richard Linklater. Written by Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr., based on the novel by Robert Kaplow. With Zac Efron, Claire Danes, Christian McKay, Ben Chaplin, Zoe Kazan, Kelly Reilly, and Eddie Marsan. (PG-13)
Despite its intimate-sounding title, Me and Orson Welles has rather little to say about the great man. Instead, it's a familiar story about a young man who gets in over his head during his first bout with love: adventures are had, lessons are learned, and nobody really gets hurt. Imagine a Woody Allen movie without a divorce, and you're getting there.
In it, a teenaged Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) fast-talks his way into a role in Welles' famous 1937 stage production of Julius Caesar. During rehearsals, he falls for house manager Sonja (Claire Danes), only to find that his attachment to her causes resentment in Welles.
There's little that's particularly groundbreaking here and a lot that isn't, especially in the faux-'30s dialogue. Director Richard Linklater has always been a bit of a magpie who often builds his films on the better ideas of others, and this one seems a little short of a number of other "theater movies," including Allen's own Bullets Over Broadway. In short, there's a persistent sense of recycling.
What makes it gloriously worthwhile is Christian McKay's performance as Orson Welles. This British actor, with only a few other credits to his name, does something wonderful as the megalomaniac wunderkind, imbuing him with all the charisma, charm, and hauteur he wielded as weapons. A performance like this deserves to be sought out, even if the film it's in does not.
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Also this week: Cinema lost one of its great trespassers when Paul Newman passed away just over a year ago. Never content to do just one thing, Newman's work in Hollywood encompassed everything from the hothouse drama of Tennessee Williams to the profane comedy of the hockey classic Slap Shot. In other films he became a mob boss, a Jewish rebel, and a survivor of a future ice age. In one, he was even the voice of a 1951 Hudson Hornet Club Coupe, which proved a good fit for an actor who spent as much time at the track as he did before the camera. It was always refreshing when Newman showed up onscreen, and his appearance often lifted perfectly passable films to something more.
This January, Northampton's Academy of Music celebrates the actor with Meet Me at the Movies, a month-long retrospective featuring five of his most recognized films. Unfolding over five Sundays, the series has already featured Newman's career-making turn in 1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but this weekend showcases what many consider the actor's signature film role: the pool shark Fast Eddie Felson in the 1961 film The Hustler.
Robert Rossen's black and white classic is a mix of noir and underdog story, with Newman as the cocksure cue jockey brought to ground by the great Minnesota Fats (a superb Jackie Gleason). And as Eddie's mercenary, hard-hearted manager Bert, George C. Scott is ferocious, a venal and oily father figure who threatens to destroy Eddie's life with boozy would-be author Sarah (Piper Laurie). Does it feature a lot of pool-hall scenes? Of course. But if you're not a fan of pool, don't let that put you off; The Hustler is perhaps the only film in cinema history that makes those scenes more engrossing than the rest of the story, even if you don't play yourself.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
